Year End Letter From Our Director
Happy Holidays from Boise Vertical Farm!
This year-end letter from our Director has two purposes:
Report on our progress and let you know what we are doing at Boise Vertical Farm.
Appeal to you to consider donating to Boise Vertical Farm during this giving season.
To remind you of what we set out to accomplish in 2019, our goals for Boise Vertical Farm were:
Provide Community Service Hours to those arrested, charged and sentenced with crimes related to drugs and alcohol.
Provide Employment Resources for Community Service participants that are ready and willing to move forward. With our Employment Resources program, we will create mentorship, training, education, skills development, and support programs for people in recovery who are ready to move from addiction to contribution.
Prevent Relapse. Most recovering addicts and alcoholics have a history of relapse. Very few find recovery on the first try. Many relapse repeatedly. The future for people who can’t break the cycle of addiction is bleak. They usually end up institutionalized, hospitalized, or deceased. We believe that a grim outcome is unnecessary and can be prevented.
We have made excellent progress toward our #1 planned goal. In 2021, we received 3 candidates from the ADA County Court System into our Community Service Program. In 2022, we received 36 candidates from ADA County, Canyon County, and the Idaho Department of Corrections. 53% were women, and we provided 1167 hours, or 22 hours per week, of Community Service. In 2023, we have received 45 candidates from ADA County, Canyon County, Gem County, and Elmore County, as well as the Idaho Department of Corrections. 56% have been women, and, to date, we have provided 863 hours of Community Service.
In 2022, 85% of our candidates completed their assigned Community Service Hours and stayed clean. (National average for drug and alcohol relapse is 84%. 84% relapse before they find recovery)
The Community Service participants worked in our greenhouses, our gardens and our woodshop.
What we have learned:
Our average participant is 20 – 30 years old and female. They are sentenced to between 4 and 200 hours of Community Service. Most struggle finding good jobs with a future. Most work jobs in fast food, in restaurants or bars. Most are exposed to drugs and alcohol daily.
We believe the reason that the national average for relapse is so disappointing is because, after getting clean, people in recovery are excluded from better jobs due to transportation issues, limited skills, limited or nonexistent work history, and a drug/alcohol related arrest and conviction.
On the positive side, we have been pleasantly surprised that most participants are polite, respectful, hardworking and easy to get along with. Most take direction well, are teachable and are very bright. Most just need direction.
In most cases, these are people who turned the wrong direction and need to find their way back. They have fallen into the trap of drugs and alcohol and need a second chance.
Boise Vertical Farm is one of a handful of independent Social Enterprises in our nation that are working to turn a generation of people who would be jailed and forgotten in our current system into contributing members of society.
We are doing well with our first Goal. We would like to start implementing Goal 2. That is, provide Employment Resources for Community Service participants that are ready and willing to move forward. With our Employment Resources program we will create mentorship, training, education, skills development, and support programs for people in recovery who are ready to move from addiction to contribution. Step 2 of our Second goal will be to provide support for child care and paid employment at our own facility.
Goal 1 has taken money. Goal 2 will take even more money. I hear people say, “I don’t want to give money to drug addicts.” They already are. Drug and alcohol addiction costs billions to our society, and it also costs lives. Addiction has been estimated to cost every man, woman and child in the nation $2,000 per person per year.
For every $1 spent on recovery and employment programs for recovering addicts, society saves between $7 - $12 dollars. The cost of addiction is in lost potential, lost productivity, lost wages, drug related crime, increased health care costs, law enforcement costs, and criminal justice costs. Employment programs have been shown to have the best rate of return.
The people we work with are worth saving. They can become contributing members of society with a little help.
Thank You,
Jeff Middleton